


Beloved

by AltheaShepard



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief, Major character death - Freeform, Mourning, Reunions, The Sun Will Shine On Us Again, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:47:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22822789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltheaShepard/pseuds/AltheaShepard
Summary: To be beloved is to be granted a great gift.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 47
Kudos: 15





	1. Beloved

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've had this idea cropping up every so often for a bit so here's a bit of an Endgame Fix-it of sorts. A heads up, there is talk of grief and mourning, therapy and coping. I don't want to spoil too much so just let me know what you think and enjoy.

The temple was beautiful. Peaceful. Around them, the mirror-like water stretched as far as they could see reflecting intricate stonework and endless sunset sky. A figure waited inside for them, robed in shifting red and beckoning them gently forward. The water rippled under their feet as they heeded the request, glancing over the simple yet elegant structure. Before them, the figure waited, letting them take their time to examine where they were and shift their focus as needed. When settled finally on the figure, it seemed pleased, cloak covered hands folded in front of it.

“You have done well,” It said, hood dipping into a slight nod. 

Did they? Do well? What did they do well? 

“Do you know where you are?”

They think, memories fragmented and tangled together in a web of images and sounds. The figure is patient, letting them unravel the disconnected sensations and thoughts. They remembered space, the infinite sea of stars stretching out before them, flashes of light as they warped through it, dismal grey above them, rocks exploding around them, sparking electronics from the broken ship, words murmured in promise and apology and hope. A resounding snap that ended the world, ash in their mouth and the dripping poison of despair as the years rolled on trying to repair what was shattered. Pain, another snap and then…. Peace. 

“Is this death?”

The robe flutters in what they think is amusement.

“It could be and it could not be. Do you remember why you’re here?”

“I…” **Tried to stop the** _monster that would_ sacrifice myself to save _**him so he could see** my daughter grow up safe._

Another flutter and dip of a hooded head. 

“Yes.”

“ **Did** He…?” _Kill me_?

“He did.”

“ _ **Did we**_ _win_?”

“You did. And we are pleased for it.” 

The figure shifts, drifting closer. There’s the weight of a hand on their shoulder, the soft fabric of the cloak brushing their neck. This close, it is easy to see that the cloak is empty but there is no anxiety making their chest tight, no chilling sensation along their spine to set their teeth on edge, the urge to strike drifting away as nothing more than smoke. 

“Few who seek us out do so to save others. Many find us to destroy though claim it to be for salvation.”

“ _Thanos… found you to save the universe_ …” 

“Thanos would destroy the universe.” 

Behind the figure there is smoke. Smoke and screaming and the slow fading of stars. The chill of space reaches and devours planets whole, snuffs out stars and steals breath from the lungs of half formed babes. Centuries in the span of a breath pass before their eyes and they know the truth of what could have been.

“Though he spoke of restarting, it would not come to pass as he thought and all would burn for 

his arrogance. An arrogance you ended. An arrogance you brought to heel with your sacrifice.”

“ _ **Was it worth it? Did it work?**_ ” 

“All is well. Though perhaps, not as it should be. There is a choice to be made.”

“ _A choice?_ ” 

“Indeed. As said, rarely are we sought out for salvation. You attempted to keep our location from Thanos and told him only to save your sister. You sacrificed yourself so your friend would have hope of seeing his family again. And you gave your life to protect trillions. These are not minor things. These are selfless things. These are things for which you have a choice.”

“What choice?”

“Do you wish to return to those who mourn your passing?”

Mourn…? Peter, Wanda, Thor, Pepper, Clint. Home. They were offering to take them home? Home to see them again? To hold his daughter? To see his brother? Home to the ragtag bunch that called themselves guardians? He could see her again, stroke his hand through her hair and travel as they’d dreamed? She could see for herself if it was all worth it?

“ _How?_ ”

“ _ **It wouldn’t undo anything would it?**_ ”

“ **How long would we have?** ”

The figure seems amused, hood dipping and shoulders curling down in mirth. It allows their questions, patient and understanding.

“Your revival would unbalance nothing and you would have as much time as you would if Thanos had not cast his blight upon you. You need only make the choice.”

“ **Why? Why do you offer this? Some were not so noble as others…** ”

There is a shimmer behind the figure, two more stepping around the pillars of the temple. Yellow and shimmering blue settling on either side. The blue drifts forward quickly, enveloping them in the wispy cloak, fondness sinking into their chest. Yellow graces a sleeve against their forehead, gentle affection in the touch. Red merely watches, pleased.

“The reasons are various but come down to one simple fact. You, all of you, are beloved in some way of us. Thus, your offer stands. Your choice must be made. No strings, no costs, no sacrifice. Do you wish to return to those who hold you so dearly in their hearts?” 

Time is meaningless in this place, still and fluttering by at once. All they feel at this moment is stillness. It is a dream of an offer, one deeply wished and aching to accept. But there is always a cost to such things even as the figure assures there isn’t. Things like this don’t happen without cost and that is a fact they have learned the hard way. But perhaps in this place, in this moment, with shimmering blue swirling around their head, a delicate laugh and gentle urging in their ears, with calm fondness and deep rooted respect, resolve and promise in their bones, perhaps this is the one moment such a thing is truly free. 

The sunset grows brighter, the figures drifting back. Water laps at their ankles but they are not afraid. They are at peace as they sink below the surface. Their last sight is the three figures bowing, a final wish drifting to them.

“Be at peace…”

They breathe.


	2. The past is not for me

For the first time in a very long time, he thought he finally knew what peace was. No fighting, no rushing off to deal with some crisis, no press to deal with. Just him, his girl, their house and the music coming from the record player. It was slow, peaceful. They swayed around the living room together, his arm around her waist, their fingers tangled together, the scent of her perfume wafting into the air. He was convinced he could stay like this till time stopped.

If only his luck was that good.

Slowly, the music came to an end, the two of them swaying to a stop. Peggy took a slight step back, enough to look up at him with a gentle smile. Her other hand came up to caress his cheek, smile growing a touch sad as he cupped it to kiss her palm.

“One more,” He pleaded, voice low to not shatter their moment. Their last moment.

She huffed, the fond little one she always gave when he did something she thought humorous.

“One more turns into two, turns into ten, and then you’ll think you can stay and we’ll be right back here,”

“But I--”

“I know. I know what you think you want but, Steven,” She shakes her head, fondness and sadness warring for dominance in her eyes.

“Steven, you know this isn’t where you should be.” 

The pain of the truth nearly kills him. By now, the ache has dulled somewhat but there’s still a hot ball of denial and grief lodged somewhere in his chest. He wants to deny it, as he first did. He wants to laugh it off and sweep her off her feet and say that this is where he was supposed to be all along. Here in this house with his best girl. The first time she’d broached the topic, that’s what he’d done and she laughed and went along with it. But then she brought it up again when he kept trying to mention things that were coming. When he had to stop himself from calling for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to answer a question he had. When it took him a little longer to settle into the quiet at night. 

But as always, Peggy was one of the best at calling him on his B.S.

One night, she’d quietly settled onto the arm of his chair, crossing her legs and curling one hand in his hair. He’d smiled, wrapped an arm around her waist and leaned back into the gentle scratch of her nails. They sat there for a while, enjoying the quiet, the peace of the evening.

“Steven,” She murmurs, lips pressing against the crown of his head. “If I ask you something, would you promise to answer truthfully?”

Frowning a little, he sits up to look at her properly.

“Of course, Peg,” 

She smiles again, gentle and just a touch sad, as if she already knows the answer to the question. It makes anxiety slither up his spine and lodge beneath his sternum.

“Are you happy here?” 

He starts, surprised. Not the question he was expecting, though his answer is quick.

“Of course I am. How could you think I’m not?”

A finger taps his nose in gentle admonishment.

“Truthfully, Steven. You promised to answer truthfully.” 

“I am.”

“Steven,”

“I…”

He can’t finish. The gentle, sorrowful, accepting look on her face stops him. She knows the truth even if he doesn’t, even if he won’t admit it to himself. She knows that he was happy when he first showed up on her doorstep, when they spent the first few months unable to go a few hours without seeing each other, when dinner every night and sunday brunch became an easy routine they’d shoot someone for interrupting. All of that was true.

But what was just as true was that he missed his team, his family. He missed Bucky and Sam and he wanted to help rebuild a world shattered again with the return of so many lives thought lost forever. Here, he couldn’t talk to anyone but Peggy about the things he’d gone through and sometimes even that was limited. He couldn’t tell her too much or be at risk of screwing up the future in some way. He couldn’t relate to anyone here because their hardships were so much different than what he’d most recently gone through. 

The truth of it, forced into the open with Peggy’s sympathetic smile and gentle touch, speared him through and stole the air from his lungs, burned him from the inside out. He looked away from her, around the small living room of the house Peggy built for herself. The house she’d made room for him in. The house he, honestly, couldn’t stay in.

“I was,” he manages to murmur, pulling his arm carefully from her waist and burying his face in his hands.

Peggy let her hand drift from his hair to his back, rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades as he struggled to breathe past the guilt and confusion and longing. He wants to stay here but he also wants to go back. The future feels more like home and though he has Peggy back he doesn’t have Bucky, can’t have Bucky because he can’t save him from Hydra, not by himself. He doesn’t have Sam, can’t apologize properly to Rhodey like he should have so many years ago, can’t apologize to Pepper for taking Tony from her and Morgan. All he has is Peggy and people he doesn’t recognize anymore. 

“I’m sorry, Peggy. I’m so sorry,”

Peggy tsks, thumping him once on the back as she slides off the arm and kneels in front of him. Her beautiful pianist hands brush his aside to cup his face, thumbs stroking under his eyes to brush the tears away. The curl of her lips wars with the shimmer of tears in her eyes as she draws him into a gentle, lingering kiss.

“Brief though it was,” She murmurs, resting her forehead against his.

“Brief though it was, we had our time together. And that was all we were meant to have. And that is alright. The briefness of it makes it all the more precious, all the sweeter to remember.”

“I feel like a failure,” 

She tsks again, tongue clucking.

“There’s something I’ve noticed about you, Steven Rogers. Something you have never realized for yourself.” 

Carefully, she tips his head up, enough to meet her eyes so he can’t hide from her. Not that he ever really could. 

“You always do what’s expected of you, rather than what you wish to do. You wanted to go to war because others around you were being drafted or volunteering and that’s what you thought you should do. Yes, you wanted to defend the innocent, people that couldn’t defend themselves and that’s why you tried so hard. And you kept fighting even after waking in a world that didn’t make sense at first because you were Captain America and that’s what Captain America does. Defends the innocent. Stops bullies. Protects. Fights. But…”

Here she has to stop, blink away the tears in her eyes. The pain in her heart runs just as deep as Steve’s but she is certain this is the right thing. For everyone. Their time, however brief, was all they were meant to have and this was their moment to say goodbye. Properly. 

“But to do what is expected does not let you be who you are. The gentle, artistic, funny, supportive, welcoming man I know you are. That James knows you are. That man has been stifled for so long and now, to be who that man is, to learn who he is, is perfectly alright. You don’t always have to do what is expected of you. You are more than a shield.”

She lets him cry, kneeling up to gather him in her arms as tears streaked down his cheeks and his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Her own tears fell, silent but cleansing all the same. She knew the pain he felt, knew it because it threatened to claw her open just the same, rip her to shreds and build her back up only to feel it again. Their tears, shared in silence, cleansed it away, took the sharp edge and dulled it. A first step in moving forward for them both. 

Gently, she withdrew, kissing his forehead and cheeks, drawing his face up again and greeting him with a smile. 

“I love you,” He blurts out first, desperation struggling for one last bid to stay.

Kindly, she shakes her head, stroking his cheeks and allowing one more kiss.

“You always will. In some way. But your heart was never for me, Steven. I know that now, even if you don’t. And you know, that your place is back there. With them. The people you found to form a family with.”

Those blue eyes she loves so much flicker closed, that blonde head dipping down into a quick, jerky nod. He straightens, pulling out of her grip to wipe his face. 

“I thought,” he rasps, “I thought this was where I needed to be. That I…. That we…. But then I keep feeling like I did before. That nothing fit. Nothing seemed right. I miss my team. My family. You will always be…. But after everything….”

Gently, she rests her hands on his knee, offering her silent support.

“I’m sorry,”

They sit there until sunrise, speaking every so often. To reassure, to comfort, to grieve, to strengthen. To accept, however bitterly, that this is the right choice.

And now they’re here, standing in her living room after one last dance, the watch that will take him back on his wrist, shield on the couch waiting for him. 

“I want to go home.”

It’s still a bitter admission for him. Will be for some time. She steps back, squeezing his hands before turning and picking up the shield from the couch, offering it to him.

“What are you going to do? When you go back?”

Slowly, he shakes his head, not reaching for the shield just yet.

“I don’t know. That… Is that…. Ok?”

He’s shy when he glances up at her, seeking her acceptance. She smiles, peace sinking into her bones.

“Of course it is, Steven. So long as you promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t do what is expected of you.”

A careful, fragile smile curls his lips, hands gently taking the shield from her. It slips onto his arm with the ease of long practice as he nods, hand reaching for the watch.

“Goodbye, Peggy.” 

Softly, taking another step back, she allows one last tear to roll down her cheek.

“Goodbye, Steven.”

  
  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


Bucky knew Steve wasn’t coming back. They had talked about it in the weeks leading up to all of this, as they recovered and mourned and tried to piece together everything that had happened into some rickety patchwork that made some sort of sense. Steve confessed that he wanted peace, he wanted to put down the shield and let someone else fight the bullies for once. Years ago, back before serums and wars, he’d have been elated to hear the news, happy to bundle his friend up in their shoebox apartment to earn what he could and not get his ribs kicked in all the time. Now, he wished he could join him in that peace though he knew he couldn’t. He never could. Steve was always seeing beyond him to something else. Something Bucky could never see but wished he could. 

Now though, all he had was the fading sensation of that last hug and the panic from Sam and Bruce in his ears. Shoving his hands in his pockets he turned and silently made his way to the lake, leaving them to their panic and bitter realization. Steve wouldn’t be coming back. He had his dame and his happy ending. His fight was done now. The bullies were gone. Someone else would have to take up the shield now, take up the mantle of Captain America. Maybe--

“Steve!”

There’s a thud behind him and the feeling of the air shifting and slotting back into place. Carefully, not wanting to acknowledge the tightness around his ribs, he turns, knowing he won’t see his friend there. Knowing Steve isn’t coming back. Knowing Steve should be back with Peggy and not kneeling on the time travel platform looking like a damn puppet with its strings cut. 

For a second he’s numb, blankly staring at the blonde on his knees on the platform. Sam thunders up the short steps, kneeling beside him, talking quickly. There’s relief and worry and from one step to the next, Bucky is confused and angry. They’d talked about this. They’d come to the agreement that Steve would return the stones and then go live happily ever after with Peggy. What had happened to that plan?! 

His knees thud on the other side of Steve, hands grabbing Steve by the shoulders and shaking him once.

“Did you return the stones?”

Steve’s head lolls on his neck but he nods, not raising his head to look at Bucky. He shakes him again, not hearing Sam’s protest or the hands trying to pull Steve from his grip. 

“So why are you here?!”

Steve’s head comes up after a moment. His brows are twisted, face splotchy red, lips thin and colorless with how hard he’s pressing them together. His torn open heart is written all over his face. Longing, regret, sorrow, hope. All there at once but unable to be processed. Steve’s jaw works, adams apple bobbing as he struggles to force the words out. Bucky helps him by shaking him again, just once, sharp enough it snaps his head back and the words come tumbling out.

“I couldn’t. It didn’t…. She sent me back…. It…. Nothing…. Felt right….”

And with the admission come the tears, Steve folding into himself to sob as he hasn’t since he was a sick kid in a tiny apartment begging any god that would listen for his body to stop betraying him. Loud, painful, desperate sobs that tear at Bucky’s heart. He hates himself for the phantom relief that wants to consume him, part of him elated at keeping his best friend with him even at the cost of said friend’s wishes for peace. But, as Bucky folds himself over Steve’s hunched form, he promises to himself, beating back that relief, that Steve will have his peace, even if it isn’t with the woman he wanted. 

“It’s ok, Stevie,” he whispers, curling over him and letting him sob. “It’s ok.” 


	3. Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because Thanos is gone, doesn't mean the pain ends. It's just a matter of working through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk of grief and therapy. Just a heads up.

It starts with Clint, oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, enough. Laura only has to watch her husband for a week to see what is obvious. Clint couldn’t let any of them out of his sight for longer than a few minutes without needing to check on them, the fear that one of them has disappeared again evident. The kids don’t understand at first, the idea that they had been gone for five years mind boggling. It was hard to swallow for her as well but she managed it, used to handling seemingly unhandleable things by nature of her marriage to Clint. They stay close together, not noticing how much they’re herded together so Hawkeye can watch over them, not at first. After Tony’s funeral, though, when there’s talk of the kids enrolling back in school and figuring out where in the school the kids who had been blipped should start, is when it’s very obvious.

They had talked about homeschooling once before back when Lila was just about to start school but had decided against it, wanting the kids to interact with other kids and not be quite so isolated on the farm. Clint pushing for it took Laura by surprise, the following discussion long and confusing for the sudden shift of Clint’s opinion. She only had to notice how tightly his hands were clenched between his knees for the light bulb to click on in her head. That light bulb turned into a blindingly bright neon sign when Cooper asked to ride down the road to see his friend Sean, also snapped away, and Clint, without a single thought, said,

“Absolutely not.”

Cooper frowned, startled by the sharpness in his father’s voice. Laura saw the tension coiling tight in Clint’s shoulders.

“But, Dad--”

“I said no, Cooper.”

“Cooper,” Laura broke in, getting her son’s attention. “Not right now, ok?”

Copper scowled, stomping down the hall in a moment of teenage anger, their bedroom door shutting loud enough to make Clint jump. Laura had hold of his shoulders before he could jump up and go after him, startled by how tightly Clint was coiled up. It was like holding steel cable in her hands as she forced him to sit back on the edge of the bed. Carefully, knowing better to startle him when Clint looked like he could leap out the window in a blink, bow drawn and ready to fight anything that came within a mile of their home, threat or otherwise, she cupped his face in her hands, drawing his gaze up to her. One thing Clint said he always loved about her was how easy she made herself clear without having to over explain, her knitted brow and downturned mouth, soft touch and quiet voice easing an inch of the tension from his shoulders.

“Talk to me,” She urged quietly, thumbs sweeping over his cheekbones.

His jaw locked up, brows snapping together, knuckles white, lungs frozen. It was a moment that could’ve lasted a century, Laura silently pleading with him to tell her what she already knew, the truth of it tearing through the thin veil of denial Clint had shrouded himself in.

“I can’t…. I can’t let you out of my sight. What if… if you don’t come back?”

The confession is painful, tearing out of his throat and leaving him raw and open, shaking under Laura’s warm hands. She doesn’t make a sound, kneeling in front of him and letting him hang his head, hiding from her as he squeezes his eyes shut. Her grip drifts from his face down to his neck, gently cradling it, pulse thundering in her palm, thumbs stroking gently just under his ears and jaw. 

“If you leave…. If you disappear again…. I’ll shatter…. And I won’t come back this time….”

They go through three therapists before Clint finds one that doesn’t scare so easy, that can handle his temper and sarcastic remarks. She’s a marvel, not condescending at all and from the few sessions Laura’s sat in on so far, manages to prod Clint into actually talking despite the obvious pain it causes him. He’s left exhausted afterwards, numb and unable to really function the next day. But he’s steady, able to explain to the kids so they understand why he’s so jumpy about not seeing them for long periods of time. The kids, flexible as they’ve been raised to be understand it, texting their father throughout the day to check in of their own volition. It settles something in Clint, the paranoia and fear still chewing at his nerves but he’s able to handle it. 

Cassandra once suggests some anxiety medication but Clint shoots it down, not one to take medication he doesn’t see the point of. She diagnoses him with PTSD and a massive guilt complex, goes through methods of spotting and calming panic attacks, talks him through the five years between snaps, urges him to reach out to the other Avengers, his second family, keep in contact with them. It’s awkward, at first, talking to Pepper on a regular basis, Laura feeling somewhat inadequate next to the powerful woman. She only has to see the brief look of shock, quickly chased by pain and hidden by a thin smile on her face at something off screen on a video call with Clint to shove that feeling aside. 

She decides on her own to make her own contact with her, bonding over their children at first and quickly finding some similar interests to converse over. Pepper’s gratitude is obvious and it’s only a few months later, on a two am phone call where Pepper can’t sleep and is desperate for a distraction, that Laura is gently suggesting Cassandra’s services to her, passing along her contact information. She can tell the offer isn’t appreciated, Pepper is too polite to really admit it out loud but Laura gets it. The polite refusal is better than the screaming match she and Clint had about it at first. 

Clint is on another video call, helping with dinner, when Laura learns that Steve is also seeing Cassandra. Clint just snorts, smirking at the haggard looking Steve on the computer screen.

“She’s a pain in the ass, ain’t she?” 

Laura chuckles. The complaint is a common one and empty of actual complaint. She hears Steve chuckle, forced and mirthless and it breaks her heart a little to hear it. 

“Yeah. Yeah she is.” 

Without really thinking about it, or talking to Clint, Laura comes to a decision and a week later is sending out the first of a round of small care packages. The items inside are personalised and honestly stabs in the dark as she doesn’t really know the Avengers all that well to really know their preferences but she tries. Pepper calls to thank her, her voice a little wavery as she tries to put on a brave face. Laura knows better and doesn’t call her on it, letting her keep the illusion that she’s not about to burst into tears. Steve is a little awkward, thanking her when he caught sight of her during a call with Clint as she walks through the kitchen.

“I read somewhere that you used to draw a lot,” She said with a smile, catching Clint’s confusion and silently promising to explain later. 

Later, Clint gives her the gooiest look she’s ever gotten from him, looking like he’s about to cry himself. Instead, he wraps her up tight in his arms, kissing the top of her head and muttering into her hair.

“What did I do to deserve a literal angel in my life?” 

She chuckles against his chest, squeezing him tighter.

The one year anniversary sees them all together again at the lake, Pepper graciously accommodating all of them and surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, having bought the properties on either side of her to use as guest housing. Lila and Morgan take to each other like a house on fire, Cooper and Nathaniel meshing in with two other boys, Peter and Harley, fairly well. There’s a lingering sadness to the air, tight smiles and awkward conversations, the holes in the group obvious. Pepper is ever the gracious hostess, her home and the guest housing warm and welcoming. She makes sure they want for nothing, everything happily provided, but after the second day, the kids escaping to the lake to just be kids for a while, Laura can’t stand the awkwardness anymore. She asks to borrow Pepper’s kitchen and after a moment of surprise the other woman agrees, watching her go curiously. 

Clint has an inkling of what she’s doing, chuckling as soon as he sees her digging out pans and ingredients, muttering to herself all the while. Wisely, he stays out of the way though he does move to sit at the breakfast bar to watch. Soon the air is filled with the scent of coffee and warm sugar, an hour and a half later seeing Laura setting plates of coffee cake on the bar and calling to the others in the living room,

“How does everyone like their coffee?”

There’s silence for a moment before Sam pipes up, nodding to Bucky and Steve.

“I don’t know about the rest but these two old timers like it blacker than dirt.”

Laura blinks for a moment, keeping a remarkably straight face causing Clint to almost snort his first sip out of his nose.

“I made coffee not tar.” 

That startles a laugh out of the group, cake and coffee passed around, some of the tension easing. Strange compliments the taste of the coffee, impressed when Laura explains the spices she added to the grounds, another pleased smile crossing Clint’s face. He had described a spiced coffee he had once on a mission to her and she had been determined to figure it out so he could have it again. There’s a faint sniffle to the side, Rhodey staring down at his plate of cake with a wistful smile on his face.

“Is the cake ok, Colonel?” Laura asks carefully, concern knitting her brow. 

Rhodey takes a breath and nods, slowly chewing another bite, eyes looking a little shiny. 

“Yeah,” he says, voice a little tight. “I just remembered Tony’s absolute disgust at coffee cake. He said it was a waste of perfectly good coffee. But we were in Italy once, one of the rare times I had some leave time and he decided we needed to go to Italy right now and we were sitting in this cafe and the owner understood enough english to figure out what Tony said. Apparently he prided himself on his coffee cake and took it as a personal insult. He brought over a piece and stood there until Tony took his first bite.” Rhodey laughed a little, rubbing away a tear that managed to roll down his cheek with the back of his hand. “Tony looked so shocked and the owner looked so damn smug. He’d never admit it but he never complained about hating coffee cake again. Always complained that others weren’t near as good but never about hating it.” 

The room was silent, Laura’s lips pressed together. Clint squeezed her knee gently, giving his wife a reassuring smile. 

“I think Morgan picked up on his picky eating habits,” Pepper says, giving Rhodey a smile, her own eyes looking a little glassy. 

“Has she decided to put mayo on hotdogs yet?” Clint asks, startling her.

“Who puts mayo on hotdogs?” Strange sounds disgusted.

“Nathaniel.” Clint and Laura say together, chuckling afterwards. 

Rhodey makes a face, looking a little sick.

“I can never eat hotdogs again without thinking of the unholy combinations Tony used to do,”

Pepper makes a sympathetic sound behind her coffee cup, shaking her head.

“What was the one he did that one summer? Back in Malibu? Honey and pickles?”

Sam actually does snort his coffee, coughing and sputtering.

“He what?!”

Clint chuckles, shaking his head, Laura catching the pinched look around his eyes.

“At least Nat never cooked for you. She put garlic and sriracha in everything.” 

This time it was Laura giving his knee a squeeze.

“It was only in everything she made you,” She said.

“I didn’t know she ever cooked,” Steve speaks up hesitantly. 

Clint makes a face, a groan of pure disgust rumbling from his mouth as Laura laughs at his pain.

“She was the worst! There were a few times I thought I was going to die of food poisoning. It was so bad!”

Laura watches with a smile as the floodgates open. The sadness is still there, lingering in the air but it’s slowly mingled with fondness, warmth, happy memories gently pushing the sad ones aside. There’s a bonfire that night, marshmallows roasting over the flames and a few times the flaming sugar has to be tossed into the lake before someone got burned or the yard got caught on fire. She wouldn’t lie and say that tears weren’t shed but those tears are accompanied by fond words and wistfulness, a slow, unspoken acceptance that those they miss, those whose absence is still felt and always will be felt, were gone they were not forgotten. And they never would be.


	4. A little Closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for descriptions of grief.
> 
> Edit: So I finished this earlier today and admittedly I posted too soon as I left something out. Last part has been added in so enjoy!

Eight months, two weeks, three days, seven hours, twenty three minutes and forty six seconds after Thanos, Peter wakes up and he just…. Can’t. His limbs are numb, his head a lead weight and his mind an endless reel of white noise. He isn’t even sure if his heart is beating or if his lungs are functioning. There’s a spot on the wall of this new apartment bedroom, their old one long gone to another family though most of their things were still with them, kept in storage by… a very generous benefactor and his utterly amazing other half. The pain of being unable to even speak his name skitters away from him like sand through his fingers which he has no motivation to grasp. Motivation to do anything has been in short supply over the last few… weeks? Months? It’s fleeting and clingy when it wants to be and he’s learned to adapt and take advantage when he can. 

This morning though he just…. Can’t. To ask him to do more than stare at the wall would be akin to asking him to cure cancer with a child’s chemistry set. Impossible. He lies there, letting the white noise and fuzz in his head shift around, watching the dust float in the sunbeam peeking through the curtains in his room. The bed dips, something warm draping over him, lips pressed to his temple. May doesn’t say anything, just pets his hair even when he eventually turns his face away into the pillow. She should be urging him to get up, go to school, take a shower, eat something. But right now she no doubt sees the chains weighing him down, the trouble he’s having to stay focused enough to even have a conversation with someone, including her. 

He isn’t sure how long they stay that way, his face buried in his pillow, blankets pulled up to his ears, her fingers stroking through his hair. At some point she gets up, his hand reaching almost too late to grasp her shirt. Carefully, like his hand will shatter if she grips it too hard, she takes it and gives it a squeeze. 

“Someone’s at the door, Pete. I’ll be right back ok?” She kisses his forehead again just as his ears register another knock.

May gives him another smile as she steps out of his room to answer the door and it’s at that moment that he realizes he’s sitting up. Must’ve happened when he tried to grab her. Turning just a bit, he considers his pillow and rumpled sheets, considers lying back down to waste away in the quiet fuzziness of his brain. A sudden, awkward weight in his lap breaks that thought before he can move to complete it. Blinking down at the squirming mass of brown hair and tiny limbs, it takes him a moment to really recognize what landed on him. The first sniffle doesn’t take nearly as long to get him moving as he curls over the small girl trying not to cry in his lap.

“Hey, Morgy,” he whispers, and the flood gates open. 

He doesn’t try to stop her, tears of his own slipping out here and there as the little girl sobs her heart out, likely not for the first time today. She’s babbling, words he can’t make out and doesn’t try to make her stop and clarify. Absently, he realizes that the truth of it all must have really hit her today, just like it did with him. She’s just taking the more vocal approach of it, as most small children would, instead of wallowing in a nest of blankets wondering at what the point of it all was if the cost was so high. He just sits there, eventually scooting back into the corner and curling around her tightly as she cries, hands fisted in his sleep shirt and face buried in his neck. 

“I… W-want… D-dad-dy,” She whimpers, his heart clenching for her.

“I know,” he whispers back, his own voice rough around the edges. “I know you do, Morgy, and I’m sorry I can’t… I can’t bring him back for you.”

The little girl just whimpers, curling up tighter. 

Something though, seems to rattle loose in the back of his mind, clanging around the bits and pieces of fractured plans and half screwed together thoughts. It clangs against something, sounding oddly like the echo of a hammer on a piece of armor in the workshop, rattling something else loose, sending a torrent of noise through his head. It’s eerily reminiscent of that time Mr. Stark had told him to grab something from a pile of metal but neither had realized how deep it was trapped. Pulling it free had sent the entire pile tumbling off the workbench and onto the floor.

“Morgan,” Carefully, he pulls back as he calls her name, gently wiping the tears off her cheeks.

“Morgan, do you know what happens when you put Mentos in Diet Coke?”

Morgan looks confused, big doe eyes just like her father’s blinking up at him. She uses a hand to wipe the mucus off her face as she shakes her head. He nods slowly, considering, before scooting back to the edge of the bed and setting her down.

“Can you ask Auntie May if we can have some money to go to the bodega? I think you’ll be surprised by what it does.”

Morgan’s chin juts out stubbornly, a whine erupting from her as she makes grabby hands at him. He catches her hands, giving them a squeeze and managing a tiny smile for her. 

“I’ll see if I can grab Ned, too? And maybe MJ? It’s a really neat experiment, Morgy Porgy.” 

“No!” 

“Please? I showed it to your dad once. He showed me a better reaction with toothpaste.”

That gets her attention, an experiment her father had done before. He can see her rolling the consideration around in her head for several minutes before reluctantly nodding. Smiling a little wider, he squeezes her hands again. 

“Ok. Go ask Auntie May and I’ll get cleaned up and call Ned and MJ.”

“Promise?” She asks with all the suspicion she can muster.

He chuckles and nods, waving her off. As soon as she toddles out of the room, face still flushed from crying and chin set in a stubborn, upset jut, he’s up and in the bathroom, throwing himself through a shower in record time and pulling on some clothes as he calls Ned. It takes a minute, the call almost going to voicemail before his friend picks up, hissing into the receiver.

“Peter! Are you ok? Why’re you calling me during school? You’re skipping aren’t you? Do you need something? What--”

“Ned!” He finally manages, stopping the torrent of questions from his best friend.

“I need your help with an experiment. MJ’s too. Morgan doesn’t know what happens if you mix Mentos and Diet Coke.” 

Ned’s silent for a moment.

“Let me call my mom and grab MJ. Meet at your place?”

“Thanks, Ned.”

He hangs up, stuffing his phone in his pocket and tossing aside the towel he was using to half heartedly dry his hair. Stepping through the door of his bedroom again, he feels a dull thump just under his sternum. The numbness is trying to spread again, trying to reach into his brain to scramble it, weigh his limbs down and force him back to bed. A sharp shout shakes him free though and he hurries down the short hall just in time to see Morgan twisting in her mother’s grasp as Pepper tries to clean her face. 

Much like her daughter, the brave face Pepper has been putting up for months is starting to crack and crumble, the struggle between mother and daughter an inch shy of shattering it completely. So, he steps forward, scooping the little girl up into his arms and taking the cloth Pepper was trying to clean her up with. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see May place a hand on Pepper’s shoulder in silent support, no pity in his Aunt’s eyes, only sympathy and understanding. 

“You can’t go running looking like a mucus monster, Morgy. They don’t let mucus monsters into bodegas.”

Morgan pouts, trying to squirm a little but eventually letting him clean her face as she mumbles,

“Not a mucus monster.”

“Well I can see that now.” He tweeks her nose gently, setting the rag in the sink as he settles her on his hip.

Pepper’s somewhat pulled herself together by the time they turn around but Peter can still recognize the strain around her eyes and mouth. Normally, he’d be more hesitant to approach the woman, the two of them not really interacting much outside of his work with Mr. Stark in the lab. Now though, he steps forward and gives her a one armed hug, holding on until she returns it, some of the strain eeking out of her spine and leaving only exhaustion behind.

“Hi, Ms. Potts,”

“Hello, Peter,” she says after a moment. “I hope you don’t mind us dropping by.”

He shakes his head as he pulls back, offering up a tired smile of his own. They won’t talk about their grief, not to each other, a silent understanding between them.

“I don’t mind. Though I did find out that Morgan doesn’t know about one of the coolest experiments out there. Ned, MJ and I are gonna show her if that’s ok.”

“...Nothing’s going to explode will it?”

“...Nothing flammable.”

Pepper looks skeptical, opening her mouth to argue with him but May comes to the rescue.

“Are they meeting you here?” She asks, not arguing about the three of them skipping school together.

Peter nods, giving Morgan a squeeze.

“We’ll be on the roof. I just need to go get supplies.” 

May rolls her eyes fondly and reaches into her purse to hand him some money.

“Keep your phone on you and make sure you clean up. I don’t want to explain to the landlord why the roof is all sticky and attracting ants.”

Peter stuffs the money in his pocket with a nod, bouncing Morgan once, the little girl koala clinging to his neck.

“Ready, Morgy?”

She grumbles, tightening her grip as they leave the apartment. Happy keeps pace behind them once they leave and Peter pretends he doesn’t hear the shaky breath Pepper lets out as the door closes. Halfway to the bodega, Morgan lays her head on his shoulder, grumbling through a sniffle.

“Still want daddy,”

The numbness tingles in his chest again but he ignores it, focusing instead of her solid weight on his back, Happy’s presence behind them and the sun beating down on them.

“I know, Morgy. But maybe this will bring you a little closer to him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


Pepper watches the door close, letting out a shaky breath and taking a heavy seat at the small dining table. May, blessed woman that she is, rests a hand on her back, rubbing slow circles between her shoulder blades as she buries her face in her hands. This morning had not gone well. For months, she had thought that Morgan understood the situation, that she was being strong so that Pepper wouldn’t have to worry about her. That the little girl was already as self-sacrificing as her daughter. In her grief, Pepper had allowed herself the illusion that things were alright, that things were, though painfully, getting back to normal. They weren’t. Far, far from it. 

That morning as she prepared breakfast, Morgan had come downstairs clutching a bear half her size and spotted the two place settings on the table. Two. Not three. 

“Where’s Daddy’s plate?” She had asked.

Pepper froze, carefully turning the stove off and taking the pan off the burner. 

“Daddy….” She has to stop herself, blinking quickly and forcing a smile despite the cracks appearing at the edges of her vision.

Morgan’s frown deepens, the grip on her bear tightening.

“You said Daddy went to Heaven. When’s he coming back?”

There’s a disconnect happening, she can feel it. Her body feels too light as she crouches in front of her daughter, gently wrapping her arms around her. The cracks are getting bigger.

“Daddy…. Daddy’s not coming back from Heaven, sweetheart. Remember? He…. He’s helping the angels watch over us.”

Tears gather at the corners of Morgan’s eyes and with a shattering heart, Pepper can see the moment it clicks in her daughter’s mind. All she can do is gather the suddenly sobbing little girl into her arms while she tries not to utterly shatter herself. For months she had been pushing forward, helping the world to recover as Tony would have wanted, throwing money at whatever organization was legitimately helping people. Rebuild. Stronger. Better. Together. She had been pushing forward with the thought of Tony’s ghost over her shoulder, the absent wonder of if Tony would approve of the path she was walking rattling around at the back of her mind. For months she kept telling herself that pushing forward would be the best thing. She had had her moment to grieve and now she had to focus on the future.

“You know, every year on the anniversary of Ben’s funeral, I still light a candle for him and talk to him like he’s there?”

May breaks her from her reverie, the warmth of another body against her side somewhat soothing, little though she knows the other woman. 

“Peter will curl up next to me and we’ll watch Ben’s favorite movies, order from his favorite restaurant and tell him goodnight. And then I’ll have a few glasses of wine after he’s gone to bed and cry a little. Not a lot, but some. What I’m saying is…. The grief doesn’t go away but…. It gets a little easier, over time.”

Slowly, Pepper straightens up, accepting the tissue May hands her to wipe her eyes.

“I’ve been… Moving forward. Drowning myself in fixing everything like… Like Tony would. And I thought Morgan was doing ok. Cassandra accused me of bottling everything up last session and I told her she was crazy but. But maybe…”

“You are,” May says, matter of fact. “But then, something like this isn’t an easy thing to face, especially when you need to be strong for the child in your life. You want to smile and take care of them and help them heal but you end up neglecting yourself until everything just falls apart and you find yourself having a panic attack at one in the morning in a twenty four hour bodega because you can’t sleep in the giant bed in your room. And that just makes them worry more and you end up crying all over each other in the ER.”

She’s silent for a moment, ashamedly (thankfully) drinking in the comfort May is attempting to bless her with.

“It felt like…. Like something physically broke and I. Couldn’t. I just…. I’m sorry.”

May just hums and wraps her arms around her, drawing her close, ignoring the awkwardness. Like the big sister Pepper never had, May gives her the strength to sob her grief into her shoulder, hand pressed to her mouth to muffle the sound. They don’t speak, not for a while though honestly Pepper couldn’t keep track of time right now. The floodgates had been opened and all the things she had been bottling up, Cassandra would be so proud to hear her admit it, came bursting out and spilling everywhere.

Anger. Grief. Confusion. Helplessness. Depression. Rage. It all came back to rage. Rage at her own inability to protect her husband, her partner, the one person that stood by her and understood her through everything. That saw the potential in her and shoved her off the ledge to either sink or fly, knowing that she would soar to heights beyond even what he knew. Rage at whatever celestial deity that would bless them with so adorable a child only to take away half of what made her so. Rage against an enemy she could no longer fight. 

_ It’s part of the grieving process, _ Cassandra would say, hands folded in her lap, sharp eyes watching the way Pepper would subtly fidget.

Pepper wanted to scream.

Fuck the grieving process.

Give me back my husband. My partner. The father of my child.

She wanted to but there was no energy. Only the energy to curl up in a corner and cry until there was nothing left but a seething headache and that pane of glass shutting her rage away. Although, maybe she let some of it out as her sobbing subsided and May chuckled.

“You should take up boxing. I think you have a killer right hook.”

Pepper picks herself up off of May’s shoulder, sniffling fiercely and wiping her face with more tissues, flushing with embarrassment. Her eyes ache, no doubt red and puffy, and her head is pounding, sure to evolve into the mother of all migraines.

“I’m so--”

“Nope! None of that.” 

May’s smile is kind as she interrupts her. Normally, Pepper would bristle at that, despising when people would interrupt or talk over her. Now though, she can’t do much more than stare at the other woman as she cups her hands in hers.

“Cry. Scream. Curse. Anything you want. Peter will keep Mogan busy for a while so it’s just you and me and the unfairness of it all. And at the end of the day, we’ll order out, let the kids gorge themselves on junk food and send them off to bed early while we enjoy a bottle or six of wine and let Happy snore away on the couch. And in the morning, I’ll make waffles and it won’t be quite so hard to make it through the day.”

“I can’t-”

“Bother me? You’re a strong woman, Pepper, but everyone has their breaking point. You just have to realize that you have people around you to put you back together.”

Her shoulders sag, vision blurring again. She hopes that her gratitude is obvious, the lump in her throat too thick to speak through. May draws her into another embrace, her own watery smile saying she understands.

“It won’t be better. Not for a long time. But maybe you can get a little closer after today.”


	5. To share the grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn't know why she does things, just that she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for allusions to suicide and suicidal thoughts.
> 
> I swear it won't be this depressing for much longer!

In a fit of grief fueled inspiration, she writes a book. She doesn’t know why she does, partially blames an inability to sleep and not enough vodka to knock her out so she doesn’t have to think, but she does it and the next morning is somewhat disturbed by what she finds. It’s her life spilled out onto pages and pages and pages, interspersed with sketches of various people and moments from her life. Her parents. Pietro. The broken ruins of their home with a missle lying only feet away from them. The dungeness laboratory of Hydra. Ultron. The compound and the Avengers. Reading over it, putting the incoherency in order, it’s a wonder that she’s still standing as she is. A wonder that she hasn’t hurled herself off of something very high or into something very deep with something very heavy keeping her from floating back up. 

She entertains the thought of destroying it, watching the pages curl and disintegrate into ash as they burn, never to spill their secrets into the world. 

“Maybe you should publish it,” Clint says one night, late, late into the darkness of early morning where you aren’t sure if the sun will come again or if the stars will claim the sky forever.

Over the past year they, the survivors and the lost, have come together in a loose orbit. Clint spearheads it, Rhodey jumping on the bandwagon with Sam behind him, dragging Steve and Bucky with him. Its phone calls and video chats mostly, text messages and emails that sometimes boil down to, “You aren’t dead yet, right?” That’s what she reads between the lines sometimes anyway. Clint pesters her to come visit, saying it isn’t good for her to be alone. She does just to get him to leave her alone but she’s gone only a few days later. The reminder of family, something she doesn’t have, is painful for her. Clint doesn’t comment, Laura being the angel of the pair and sending her off with a care package and a smile and not letting go of her hands until she promises to visit again.

She’s somewhere in Romania, some hole in the wall hotel with suspicious stains on the ceiling and threadbare sheets, when she pulls out a notebook and starts writing. She didn’t even know she had as many notebooks as she did until the next morning when every single page is filled to the brim with stories and drawings and fragments. It takes her the better part of two days to sort through it all, read through the memories and let the grief pulse in her breast like a fresh gunshot wound. Somewhere around a week later, she manages to find a library that can scan the stack of pages and she sends the massive file to Clint.

It’s all on a whim and there’s nothing she can identify telling her to do it. She’s just moving, doing things without thought. Certainly, she appears insane to the general public but the thought is acknowledged and promptly set ablaze like most others. Everything else goes up in flames, why shouldn’t her thoughts and feelings be any different?

Clint texts her to demand a video call and by the look on his face when the call connects she can tell that he was worried. Is still worried. Will probably be worried for a very long time with how erratic she’s being. 

“And you have no idea why you wrote this.” He says, to which she shakes her head.

He sighs, scrubbing his hands over his face and linking them behind his neck. 

“I’d suggest this therapist I’ve started seeing but I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

“I don’t need a therapist.”

Clint snorts.

“I said that, too. Laura just stared at me until I shut up and made an appointment.” 

“I’m fine, Clint.”

“Yeah? When was the last time you brushed your hair? Or washed it? I know the boho look is in right now but it isn’t your best look.”

“If you’re only going to berate me--”

“Maybe you should publish it.” 

She freezes, hand half raised to cut the call.

“What?”

“Maybe you should publish it. That thing you sent me. Book. It’s certainly long enough.”

“What would that accomplish?”

Clint just shrugs, sharp eyes watching her.

“Maybe something. Maybe nothing. It was a thought. Might give you a better purpose than just roaming randomly.”

A lump rises in her throat, gaze shifting away from the screen and catching on the ring on her pinky. A gift. A first gift, simple but meaningful.

“We had… Promised to see the world. Together.”

Clint is silent for a long moment. She hears him shift, searching for something to say surely.

“Yeah. But… I don’t think… He’d want you to wander forever. I think he’d want you to move forward. Actually live your life.  _ See _ the world.”

“Like you did?”

It’s a low blow and she knows that. The merciful and sympathetic side of her cries out in alarm at her cruelty but the other part, the darker part that seethes in rage and impotence and grief, chokes it down and stuffs it back in its tiny little box in the blackened part of her heart. She sees Clint’s jaw tightening, the barest clench of his fist before he’s sighing and shaking his head.

“What would he want for you? Honestly?”

Nothing comes to mind, only the what ifs and the should bes and the could have beens. Nothing of what He’d want for her. Nothing of what she could do without him because without him was never really a thought she wanted to entertain. 

“I don’t know.”

She hangs up. Doesn’t talk to him for a few days. All incoming messages are ignored as she sits in another random hotel room and stares at the wall. Just like the book though she decides something at random. Though, looking back, it’s less of a decision and more like her body was moving on autopilot while her mind just shrugged and let it happen. She winds up at the compound, watching for an hour or so as the construction crew works. The damage from… Him… had been extensive and would still take a good while to fix. Steve settles next to her without a word, just a presence to be acknowledged when she was ready. A slight turn of her head is his cue.

“The residential wing has been repaired. Your room is still in the same spot. Or you could pick a different one.”

Steady, even. No pressure. 

“Is there one with a lot of windows?” She asks, noticing for the first time how rough her voice is, how heavy her accent.

Steve takes it in stride, forearms braced on his knees as they watch the construction.

“Most of them do, yeah. There’s a corner room available if you want that.” 

She nods, getting to her feet an hour later. Steve takes her bag, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to lead her inside. That night, she takes the longest shower she’s had in months, curling up in the corner when the weight gets too much and letting the water clean away her tears. Clean and dry, she crawls into bed and struggles to find sleep. The looks in the common room the next morning tell her that the others know the truth. Given the dark rings around Steve’s eyes and the sympathetic offer of strong coffee, she isn’t out of the norm around here. A few days into her stay, she starts to notice things. 

There are sketchbooks in practically every room. Mostly by the windows with pencils, oil pastels, charcoal. Steve’s. Sam tells her that he’s been using art to reconnect with himself. Apparently he was pretty decent at it back before he was the Captain. Sam has made the kitchen his domain, going so far as to smack people (Bucky) with a dish towel or wooden spoon to make them leave. None of them are complaining, inhaling every meal as if it’s their last. In her wanderings, she also finds an MP3 player and two sets of headphones in the library. Shortly thereafter she finds out who they’re for. Bucky and Steve are sitting back to back in front of a window, headphones over their ears as they listen to whatever it is. Stever looks relaxed, hands loosely clasped in his lap. Bucky, however, has his knees pulled to his chest, hiding his face. Carefully, she backs out of the room and leaves them to their peace. 

Peace she is envious of as she can’t manage more than a few hours of sleep a night, waking just before dawn every day even though she had only found rest a few meager hours before. The windows in her room are nice but she takes to wandering outside, sitting in the breeze way with a light shawl around her shoulders watching the sun crest the tops of the trees and turn the sky all manner of pinks and oranges. Bucky joins her one night, passing her a cup of hot coffee sweetened to perfection. They don’t speak, just sit in the silence and wander back inside as the sun comes up.

Maybe two weeks later, time is hard to keep track of, Bucky intercepts her as she heads outside and leads her to a small spot a little further from the building. There’s a fire pit dug into the ground, adirondack chairs set up. Steve is tending to the fire already flickering, Sam settled back into one of the chairs. They don’t say much that night, passing around a thermos or two of coffee and watching the stars. It becomes routine, sitting around the fire at night. They don’t come together every night, maybe only one or two, when the mind can’t shut down enough to allow for rest. On nights they do all come together, they find out things. 

Bucky is a surprisingly good singer. His voice is warm and rich like honey, smokey and deep. He’s shy about it, ducking his head behind the fall of his hair the first time he finishes a song. She catches his eye and gives him a little smile, returned with a touch more confidence in the corner. Sam can play guitar, fingers strumming out a tune they either know or don't. It leaves a wonderful lethargy in their bones, something peaceful and soothing curling around them with the warmth of the fire. In the quiet, just before dawn, she tells them about the “book”. The summary is brief, not wanting to linger on the details of it, keeping her gaze fixed on the stars above as she speaks. She mentions thinking about burning it.

“I wouldn’t,” Sam says, fingers still strumming lightly. “I think it’s more helpful than you think. Don’t know about publishing it but… keeping it close seems like a good idea to me. Might keep you grounded.”

She holds onto it. No one asks to read it and when she eventually speaks to Clint again, he doesn’t ask her about it. They talk like the last conversation didn’t happen.

The one year anniversary creeps up on them. The lake is just as beautiful as it was before, Pepper’s arrangements spot on. There’s a lingering tension in the air for the first few days, none of them really willing to acknowledge the reason they’ve gathered, afraid of the pain it’ll bring. Coffee and cake later, there are stories flowing as well as the occasional tear. She sits in the corner, cradling her mug, ghost of a smile managing to form on her lips. That night, sitting around the bonfire and watching the kids try and put out a flaming marshmallow, she quietly asks Pepper for a favor. 

Nothing happens at first, her days falling back into their routine. She socializes with those in the compound, reads, tries to sleep, fails, picks up gardening of all things. A space is cleared out in front of the windows of her room and after a lot of research she soon has a flower bed planted on one side and a small vegetable garden on the other, a stone bench hugging the corner to separate them. Maybe a month after the anniversary, she gets a phone call from Pepper.

“I sent it to a few publishers I know and took the liberty of finding the best offer.”

“Best offer?”

“Each one I sent it to wanted to publish it. However, I was looking for one that would treat it with the respect it deserves.”

She chuckles a little in disbelief.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Just… rambling and bad sketches.”

Pepper is silent for a beat. Two. Tone firm when she speaks again.

“It’s your life, Wanda, and it deserves to be treated with respect.”

She goes with Pepper’s suggestion, meeting with a lawyer to discuss the details of the contract. There’s no requirement to write another one nor any requirements for a book tour or personal promotions and she takes home ninety percent of any profits. It doesn’t really matter to her, still not sure what it would accomplish. The publisher rushes to get it printed, the editor assigned to her saying her story would help those feeling just as lost as she is. How anyone could relate to her experiences she doesn’t know. The first piece of fan mail, actual fan mail, explains it to her. 

She hadn’t paid a single flicker of attention to anything about the book after the publisher said it would hit shelves in a few months so the letter she reads is shocking.

_ The fact that you’re still going shows me that I can too. I lost both my parents to the blip when their plane crashed and the year before that my little brother. But you’re still going, so maybe I can too? _

Similar letters keep coming, people sharing who they lost and when and showering her with encouragement in return for what she gave them. She doesn’t understand it. It’s a rambling roadmap of tragedy with a few bad drawings to break up the monotony of her pity party. How could something like that encourage anyone? How could laying out her failures and her weakness make anyone see her as anything other than what she is? A broken doll that keeps going for a reason she can’t pinpoint. One with monstrous power that hasn’t been used since the desolation.

“Because you’re still standing and you shared your pain with the world.” Sam explains, helping her sort through the mail.

“Most people, going through what you have, wouldn’t. They’d keep it to themselves, seeing it as a burden put on someone unnecessarily and that the other person would hate them for doing it. But. Seeing someone share their story, being straightforward about it and not shoving it down people’s throats makes it seem like they’ve survived hell and come out the other side. They didn’t break, they didn’t implode. They didn’t take some way out. Still going along, living, however they are… It’s encouraging for people.” 

Encouraging. Encouraging that she’s still standing despite it all. 

Something unfurls in her chest, gently releasing a bit of the bitter blackness around her heart. She sleeps a little easier, her dreams for once not filled with broken stone and smoke and fire. Instead it’s forests and an open sky, sunlight gently touching her hair, warming her face. It isn’t long before Steve notices, smiling and telling her one morning that she looks better. She doesn’t have to ask what he means, knowing that despite how long she’s been at the compound there hasn’t been much improvement in her appearance besides the fact that her hair is clean now. The longer people send her letters, pouring out their hearts and sympathies and encouragements, the stronger her pleasant dreams grow. There are negative comments mixed in with the positive of course but she doesn’t focus on those. 

Well, she doesn’t once Bucky finds the stash she’d been hiding and agonizing over and burns them one by one in the fire one night, staring at her the whole time. It had gotten pretty ridiculous, so much so that she’d eventually given into semi hysterical laughter and tossed them in the flames herself. Another piece of the blackness drips away that night. The sunlight in her dreams grows stronger and gradually she realizes that there is someone standing there with her, hand hovering over hers, not reaching to grasp but enough to know he’s there.

_ He’s there. _

The morning after that dream, after that revelation, she’s left gasping in her bed, clutching her sheets to her chest. She’s moving before she’s truly aware, finding her ceiling gone and Steve’s opening door before her between one blink and the next. Distantly, she knows she’s dressed and has a backpack clutched in her white knuckled hand.

“I need to go to Wakanda.”

Steve stares at her for a long minute, an age, long enough to make the static starting to prickle under her skin grow painful.

“Why do you need to go to Wakanda?” He asks carefully, sharp eyes watching her. Bucky hovers behind him, woken no doubt by the furious pounding on the door.

“I can’t… Explain it. But I need to go. I need to go.”

It’s worrying for her to admit that she doesn’t remember the flight. She doesn’t remember boarding the jet, doesn’t remember watching the shield around the capital city dissipate around them as they pass through it. There’s only the static under her skin and the itching certainty that she needs to be here. Her heart, battered as it is, is racing in her chest, fluttering around like a trapped bird about to collapse on the cage floor any second. Something is pulling her, beckoning her with a familiar touch gone almost seven years now and the image of this very sky above her. These very trees in front of her.

The static has drowned out all sense of time, all awareness of those surrounding her, focus narrowing only to the treeline at the edge of the cursed plain that was the sight of their loss. Her feet dare not cross into the foliage though, rooting themselves to the spot, that same static rising to tell her to wait. 

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Silence. Stillness. Numbness. 

A flicker of gold in the trees. A shower of sparks like a wildfire. More sparks. The feeling of a great pressure on her chest, stealing her breath, freezing her lungs. 

And then.

Her strings are cut and she is on her knees, staring as the sparks solidify in the greenery. 

A blink.

Another.

A hand reaches for her, long fingered and red. Familiar. Silver covers the arm, the shoulder, the chest. Accents of gold in the center, across the clavicle, brushing his heels, her knees. The blue is painful to look at, something she can’t read.

His fingers touch her cheek and the static falls away. His voice speaks her name, the silence, and the fragile armor surrounding her heart, shattered with a single word.

“Wanda.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	6. Sparks and Fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! Enjoy!

He doesn’t recognize the people his brother is talking to. In truth, he barely recognizes his brother. The build is similar if a little heavier but the matted hair and beard are hideously out of place. Thor was always prideful of his appearance, mourning the loss of his hair on Sakaar. To see him now was jarring, leaving him wondering if he truly was staring at his brother or if he had been deposited somewhere else. A more charitable part of his mind, tiny though it was and sounding much like his dear mother, begged to give him some leniency. Grief and guilt led one down a destructive road often times.

The creature beside him is quiet, watching his brother and the other three chatter away. She doesn’t ask anything, simply stands beside him, letting him settle into the reality around him. Her fingers alight on his hand, antenna glowing softly, likely reading him, reading what for now is only a distant sensation to him. 

“He mourns for you,” she says softly, slim fingers curling more firmly around his hand. “He mourns for home and Father and Mother. He is better now but it is difficult for him.”

His gaze drifts back to Thor, the oaf laughing at something the human said. He could tell, though, that it was somewhat forced, the tension around his eyes and threaded through his shoulders giving him away. Once, he would have mocked his brother for such a terrible attempt at covering up his turmoil but now he hesitates. Would that laughter, however forced, die completely with his return, replaced with fury and the belief that his death had been another trick? A far crueler trick with being gone so long?

“The anger and suspicion will fade. He will be too happy to have you back.”

A shake of his head shows how much he doubts that. She turns to him then, gently urging him deeper into their shadowed corner, offering the hand not woven with his.

“I can show you his grief. I take it for him so he can sleep.”

Her fingers, long and thing, hover by his cheek. Another forced laugh grates across his ears and it is suddenly difficult to breathe. Everything is heavy, each step a torture. It would be peaceful to never move again though the thought of the disappointment he would face from those lost is what pushes him forward. Forward through the agony of another day with the ghosts at the edges of his mind. To move is to live as the would wish. To move is to feel the weight of their loss as mountains in his bones. 

Beyond the soul crushing grief is a bare shred of relief, bright if only in its comparison to the desolation, the loneliness. He will see them again someday when the Norns will it. The thread firms to a tiny anchor, the flittering thought that to honor the lost he must live as well as he can. For their memory. 

Breath rushes to fill his lungs, a great tremor wracking his limbs, wide eyes blinking down at her. There are tears sliding down her cheeks, a kindness to mourn for the brother who cannot, will not allow himself to. An echo of grief pulses in his chest, cold and dark and beckoning. His own grief, his own guilt, had felt like this. Cold, numb, heavy. It left him seething, itching to move, needing to move. Even now the echo called to the lingering memory of that day, tempting it forward to numb him again. He could not afford to be numb.

His fingers grasp the first thing in reach as he steps from the shadows, a faint thrill of satisfaction tickling his spine as the object smacks hard into the back of Thor’s head. Distantly, he registers the alarm on the face of Thor’s companions but now is not the time to entertain them. Instead, his focus narrows on the shock on his brother’s face. Shock which slowly morphs to denial as his gaze drifts to the woman beside him.

“Fine aim, Mantis! You’re getting better!”

His laugh is just as grating. The human looks at him confused, hissing something he has no interest in hearing. No. He is far more interested in conjuring a small dagger and throwing it at Thor’s ugly beard. If he angles it just right, he may be able to neaten it up some. Ingrained, though delayed, instinct has his brother catching the blade, a wince crossing his face as the blade catches his flesh. Pain, however minor, is a rather good indicator of consciousness. Mismatched eyes (when did he get another eye?) land on him, slowly raking over him, wanting to deny him, pleading him to be a ghost, begging that he is only a hallucination brought on by grief. It is a kindness he cannot grant as he hurls another dagger.

This one is caught much quicker, Thor looking down at the two blades in his hands while the human and the others squawk their outrage, moving to intercept him. But Thor, God of Thunder, is quicker. Despite his bulk he is so much quicker than he can react to. There is barely a moment long enough for him to register the grip around his neck before he’s shocked by the ricochet of his head hitting the wall. Thor is furious, crowded up against him, both hands shaking where they grip him. Teeth bared in a snarl of outrage, nostrils flared, eyes burning. It is a look he has seen only a handful of times and normally, he would delight in causing his brother such upset, his usual cheery smile wiped clean from rage. 

He never wanted such all encompassing anger directed at him, however. 

“--other game, Loki?! A trick?! For how long!? How-- why!?” 

His ears are still ringing as Thor hisses his questions, the depth of his hurt and confusion palpable. But it was no trick.

“I can remember the feeling of my neck snapping, Brother. I remember the gates of Hel before me, my hands burning where they gripped the bars that wouldn’t part to let me in. I waited. Waited and waited and waited but still they would not part for me.”

Thor’s face crumples, just a bit, just around the edges.

“I have played many a trick in my life, Brother. I have been cruel. But I would not be this cruel. I would not falsify my death combined with the loss of our people. To fake my death once and replace Father. But to lie about my death with the deaths of so many…” 

Denial paints his brother’s face, mixing with agony to create a slowly dawning image of crushed acceptance.

“The first lie… The first lie I ever told was that Mother’s mirror would let you see into another world. You said it didn’t work. I took it from you and said that you weren’t looking hard enough. I could see a city of clouds. You took it from me and when you couldn’t see it, you tossed it back on Mother’s vanity, shoved me to the side and stormed off. You were sulking for a week before you found that serpent in the garden. You--”

“Stop.” It is a strangled plea that lances deep into his chest, chasing out some of the numbness. 

Thor’s head is bowed, hands shaking as they grip him. Something glows out of the corner of his eye, a brief distraction. 

“How--” Thor chokes, swallows, raises his head. “How is this--”

Slowly, he shakes his head, gripping Thor’s hands on his tunic.

“I’m not certain. I have a thought but… everything is fuzzy. It is… Hard to recall.”

A shadow passes over his mind, a brief memory of water, cloaks and others beside him given the same offer. Something gently brushes his mind, calling to the wandering soul in his heart, a brief feeling of stars and the vastness of space beyond the thin hull of the ship. Gently, he pushes it back, a promise to call on it later when Thor (and himself admittedly) are not in danger of shattering completely. 

“I am here, Brother. I am here.”

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


Between one burst of adrenaline and the next, something’s changed. It comes in fits and spurts, blending with the sparks of pain as someone gets in a lucky shot. Memories she doesn’t have blending with ones she does, filling in a gap of time that she wasn’t around to experience but the one before was. The one that was shoved off a cliff to fulfill Father’s ambition. The one that got what she’d wanted. The one that was getting greedy now, itching at the edge of her mind, trying to find a way in, a way to override what was now with what had been. The one before had their life, had their experiences, different from hers. Why should she give up hers because the other needed a body? All because a parasite thought it could reclaim what it had before?

_ We’re the same person. _

**We’re not.**

She’s stumbling out of the bar, new bruises aching under her skin, muscles burning with the exertion. Her cheek stings where someone got lucky with a knife. A knife now embedded in their sternum. 

_ We’ve never been that violent. _

She ignores it, straightening her spine as she strides down the street. The burn of alcohol and a good fight make the edges of her vision blurry, a thin smirk curling across her face. No doubt if she stays here, there will be someone after her. Like that’s any different.

_ It is different. _

Her drink must have been drugged if she’s hearing voices.

_ You know who I am. You can’t deny it. _

There’s a flash of light in her face. A hard voice ordering her hands into the air. Her lip curls, flinching away from the light and the shadow she can just barely see over the officer’s shoulder. The shadow steps forward as the officer does, features familiar, like looking in a mirror. She swings, aiming to banish it but the officer gets in the way, going down hard. That’ll get her some unwanted attention. 

_ You can keep fighting. But we are the same person. And you know that. _

**_We are not the same!_ **

The parasite had died for a stone, died because she was weak and sentimental. She wasn’t though. She wasn’t weak, she wasn’t pining for what she’d had. There was an ache in her chest that only a good fight seemed to diminish, an itch in her bones that the rush of adrenaline quelled. 

_ That only works for so long and you know that. _

**I’m not you.**

_ You are. You are me and you know-- _

Lightening under her skin, seizing her muscles, throwing her head back and clamping her teeth together. Painful, bright, searing, numbing. Shadows grabbing her arms, restraining her, hauling her into the back of a vehicle. Vaguely, through a dense fog, she’s aware of familiar boots in front of her, slim hands trying to reach for her. 

_ We can have so much more than this. Please.  _

**You died. This is my life now.**

_ You’re me. _

**_I’m not!!_ **

The fog shakes free from her head as she hauled out of the transport and into a station, the lofty title of Honor Guard glaring at her from the wall as she’s processed. The reason for her arrest is read to her but she honestly doesn’t care, can’t muster up the energy beyond the pounding in her head. All the while there’s a ghost, a mirror image, staring at her with their arms crossed, brows twisted in a silent plea.

Pathetic.

She’s put in a cell by herself, thankfully, tiny, square, a cold slab of metal affixed to the wall, the only other place to settle besides the floor. The chill of it clears her head a little, relieves the ache she didn’t realize was there. It does nothing for the phantom looming over her.

_ You can’t ignore me. _

“Go. Away.”

_ I can’t.  _

“Fuck off.”

Rolling onto her side does nothing but set off the pounding in her head again. Note to self, as Quill would say, alcohol and tasers don’t mix.

_ You’ve never heard him say that. I have. _

Maybe if she ignores the ghost, it’ll go away. A hallucination.

_ I’m not leaving. _

“You’re not staying.” 

There’s a growl, her own lips pulling back in a snarl and there’s a hand around her throat, yanking her off the slab. The ghost tries for her again, yanking onto her hair and hauling her up but she twists, sweeping the legs out from under her, her hair be damned. Falling, the ghost twists out of the way before she can be grabbed but it’s useless. The room is too small to maneuver well. They’re kicking and biting and clawing at each other, scrambling for purchase, spitting curses and screaming at each other.

Her head pounds harder, nothing to do with the lingering alcohol, maybe to do with her head slamming into the wall. Largely because of the ghost screaming at her. Her throat is raw from screaming back, teeth bared. Her mouth tastes like copper. From her own injury or the hand she viciously tries to bite off, she doesn’t know. The ghost must have friends, though, hands gripping and holding, straining to keep her down. She doesn’t let them, twisting and screaming and fighting. It’s all a fog, the edges of her vision hazy, sound fading in and out with the racing beat of her heart. 

Music.

Boisterous laughter.

Coarse fur under her fingers.

Questions. So many questions.

Exasperation.

Feather light fingers.

Desperation.

Peace.

Resignation.

Safety.

Purpose.

Salt. 

Hysteria.

Disbelief.

Confusion.

Images like watercolor drifting before her. Memories she has (had) (has), voices she’d forgotten. Sparks of purple across her skin, strong hands in her own. The foundation of an unlikely alliance turned friendship turned something they didn’t talk about for fear of it’s fragility. Steadfast confidence, desperate acceptance. An unfamiliar but achingly longed for word. It circles and circles and circles around, just out of reach, just out of mind for her to catch. 

Pain is an anchor desperately trying to lash her body and mind together, trying to clear the fog away for reality to come sweeping in. But those threads are thin and wavering in the wind, brushing her fingers and disappearing like smoke before she can grasp them fully. 

**Make it stop!**

_ Stop fighting me. We can have it all back! _

**You don’t belong here!**

_ Neither do you! _

The fog gets thicker.


End file.
